Migidoll, Luts and Nobility NS comparisons and head swaps

Note: Copied from my personal blog since I posted this there before I made this doll blog :) I'm trying to put all the resin match/proportions stuff together, and there's a tag for that as well ^^

NS resin comparison plus head swaps

I got down to doing this, but the photos aren't that great, so please read what I write rather than just rely on the photos for resin match. Proportion wise, the photos are okay, even though my room is kind of too small for me to do a proper front view.

The heads: Migi Jina (Volks NS '09), Migi Miho (New Migi NS '12 *This was back when Migi stopped their NS-A/NS-B), SDF Bliss (Luts real skin, the more yellow kind '07)
The body: Nobility Emotional boy body (Supposed to match Volks NS '12)

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Jina head on the body. Proportions are good, resin match is okay in real life, but the body photographs more pink, so overall the head looks yellower in photos. But in real life, the resin match is the best for my Jina head out of the 3 heads.


The only problem is that his neck hole is kind of small for the neck. This is the natural pose his head goes to if I don't yank it. It's okay if he's slouching (neck's aren't supposed to be straight, so I make him slouch, and his head, though in this position would then look like it's looking straight at you), but weird if you make him stand straight.


To make his head like this, there's some small gap between the head and neck which you can't see unless you take out his headcap and peer from the inside. The problem is that because of this gap, his head doesn't want to stay like this and tends to snap back to the way it is in the photo before.
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Miho head on the body. Proportions are good. His neck hole is bigger so the head sits better on the body. Resin match in real life: the head is pinker, and lighter than the body. Resin match in photos: the body is pinker and lighter than the head. Basically he photographs with the resin mismatch, but opposite in photos than in real life (if you understand what I mean?). It isn't terribly obvious, but if you're picky about this, then you won't want to put a new Migi NS head on a new Nobility body.


In real life, the head is the shade of colour of the body in this photo, and the body is the shade of the head. Yes, it's confusing. I don't know why but the body photographs lighter than in real life.


His head naturally sits like this, which is better than my Jina head. Notice the gap in the head and neck. I think it's normal if you want some range of neck movement? He can turn his head better than Jina.
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Bliss on the body. This is probably the only one where the resin match in photos and real life is about the same (i.e. head is yellower than body). But then again, luts realskin changes colour very often, and I have a old head (circa 07) so it's the yellower kind. Proportions are good, but you can notice his neck appears shorter than when the Migi heads are on it. SDF Bliss head has a deeper neck hole so something.


His head is still rather big compared to the Migi heads but I rather like that the neck is shorter. (I'm thinking if I should get Dennis a Nobility body as well, cos I really like how he looks on it.)


His neck hole is probably the biggest cos his head can tilt forwards, backwards and anywhere (pretty much). Probably to do with the fact that the neck hole is deeper?
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And a last photo of all the resin together.
Resin match in real life: Bliss head is the yellowest, then Jina, then the body, then Miho
Resin match is photos: Bliss is still yellowest, then Jina, then Miho, than the body.
Basically Volks NS Jina and Volks NS Nobility body matches in real life but not in photos. Everything else doesn't match perfectly (maybe 85-90%).
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And I forgot to add this yesterday, but here's a height comparison of Nat, Dennis and Gabby:

Left to right: Jina on Nobility body, Bliss on AA body, Lishe on delf type 3 body

Elfdoll, Supia, Leeke and Little Monica NS comparison

Since I took the photos for the Leeke photo reference thread on doa, I decided to put the pictures here too :)

Heads: Elfdoll Vivien (NS, Nov 2012) and Leeke Khal (NS, Jul 2012)
Bodies: Supia Old body (NS, Unknown date) and Little Monica type A (NS, May 2012)


Elfdoll NS is darker than Leeke NS. Since Tiyana was still on her Supia body, it got into the comparison too, and lo and behold, it looks like it can match Leeke NS. o.O Because I've no idea when the Supia body I have was made, I had to use the heeled feet I recently got for comparison. Hence the next photo which is weird lol. (I was holding Tiyana sideways, haha)


Here the difference between the older and new Supia isn't too obvious but the older one has definitely yellowed. I would say the yellowed Supia is slightly yellower than Leeke but the new Supia is slightly pinker. But both looks pretty close...so for the fun of it I put my Khal head on the Supia body 8D


Without a wig. I guess he still looks okayish? It's probably because Supia's old body has a neck that is quite thick, just a bit thinner than the Little Monica boy body beside. :>


With a wig he looks a bit bobble-headed, but fatter clothes would probably help, if anyone ever considers this hybrid. Zeke (my Khal) isn't too pleased with that idea hahaha.

P.S. Whoops I didn't notice the funny ring finger sticking out on my boy. :<

Migi, Little Monica, Leeke NS resin match

Just a quick picture. My Migi and Little Monica NS go pretty well together (you can see a minor difference under natural light but hardly any under artificial light), but Leeke is like...a bit too light and pinker.

And since I realise that my dolls kind of all into either 1 of the below 3 height ranges, I decided to grab the 3 most convenienetly located dolls to snap a quick photo of "height" comparison. They're all clothed and wigged so it's not that easy to tell but I wanted to show what they'll look like side by side in normal photos. :)



Tiyana's in heels so she's taller than Gabby but she's actually a bit shorter. Gabby and Jack are probably the same height (Jack is shorter I think). All the floating heads who share the twin's LM bodies are currently that height (lol), and Nat on his Nobility body is about the same height as the LM ones.

In ascending height (I think?):
1. Tiyana (Elfdoll Vivien, Supia old body) ~ 58cm
2. Jack (Zaoll Muse, Fdoll body) ~60cm
3. Gabby (CP Lishe SS, Delf type 3 body) ~ 60cm
4. Dennis (SDF Bliss, Volks SD13 body) ~61cm?
5. Nat (Migi Jina, Nobility Emotional body) ~63cm
6. Hew and Sion (Migi Mihos, Little Monica bodies) ~63cm

And that's all the ones I have who actually have bodies :/ 7 dolls + 4 heads blehh. So many floating heads.

I'm starting to search around on doa for possiblities of hybrid bodies for my Leeke heads while I slowly save up. I'm pretty certain that a Granado Nuevo in NS (pink tone right...) would be the right body for Kristolf (my Mihael), but it's hard to find a tall, relatively slim/lean (or at least not built. Like a lean guy who doesn't work out much) body for Zeke (my Khal).

Akagidoll's 66cm (or 68cm) body looks like it might work but it seems to be environmental resin. Not sure how that would match O.o Popodoll 68cm would probably be yellow tinted so I don't think it's the best choice for Zeke cos I want to keep his default faceup. And I don't know any other good body choices :/ Boooo.

I don't know why I've never seen this recommanded anywhere before, but I realise that while reading/looking at faceup tutorials and faceup videos can be useful (to be honest, most videos are too far away to be really useful, except maybe Andreja's), I've been watching quite a lot of human makeup tutorial videos, and some of them are really useful in helping me figure out where to place colours etc. Here's the ones that might be more useful for bjd faceuping:

1. For a natural faceup with freckles


I think it helps even if you're not going to add freckles, cos the way the bronzer is used, and how there's a red shade applied before bronzer can be applied to how we use colours/blushing on faceups.




This video might be a bit long, but it's rather informative on the shape and colours to use to get freckles. :)




2. For a semi-natural faceup (more girly/makeup-y)


I thought the colour scheme used here is quite similar to how a lot of girl doll faceups are done. The look between natural and makeup-y. I guess cos dolls in general have pretty thick makeup by human standards? When I saw this I thought it'll explain the colours on faceups by like, belladonna. Which is on male dolls, by the way. But yeah, I liked this video.



I thought this is a good one for male faceups too, cos of the brows. Haha.



3. How to draw eyebrows
CLICK for the video (embeding was disabled D:)

I guess the half of it isn't really super useful for doll brows cos we don't need to pluck doll brows, but the shape, the direction of the hairs...I would say this video would be rather useful :) It's a more natural/straight brow shape since I'm not super fond of the highly arched brows and how they're filled on other brow videos. I don't like how the brows are filled until they're really blocky, if that makes sense? I like the softness of the brows toward the nose bridge, so I'm not recommanding pixiwoo's brow video for that, but here it is, if you want to see it.



4. Darker eye makeup/faceup


I really like the red under the eyes but I probably won't use the rest of the tutorial on dolly faceups.



Another one for the dark eye makeup thingie. I never really knew that using red as an undertone would work so well until I stumbled upon it one day while doing Sion's (or Hew's?) faceup. But yeah, apparently Michelle Phan knew that already.


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That's all the ones I can think of right now, haha.

[edit 6 June 2014: here's more





For blushing




Soft/glam goth

Sometimes it's all we've got...
All we've got is this thin strand of sanity that we can hang on to for dear life.

I don't know man, sometimes I feel so confounded by life itself. It's hard to reconcile the reality of the world and the insides of my head, and most of the time it's easier to just ignore stuff. Sometimes I look at Gabby and I think that's why he smiles. He smiles to hide the insides of his head, the thoughts he doesn't want people to know. I'm projecting, aren't I?

Sometimes I wish life came with an instruction manual. On second thoughts, it might have, but as with all the electrical appliances we buy, the instruction manual gets tossed into the box and forgotten...probably.

I was searching on Etsy and found natrume's shop (she's the one who did really realistic looking minimees of Sherlock and John/Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman), and she has minimees of Castiel, Sam and Dean/Misha Collins, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. :o The shocking thing is they look way more alike than any other companies have managed so far...I'm really amazed by how alike they are. o3o Especially Jared's face. And Jensen Ackles still looks a tad off...I wonder why, even though it's the most alike MNM I've seen of him.

And on the Etsy browsing note, I found Simply Divine (a doll "shop") and their Harlequin sculpt. Searching on DoA makes me realise how big that head is...and to think I was considering that he might be good for Freddie (who's a girl, haha).

Now to continue browsing...

Sometimes I look at the jewelry names I give and I cringe in horror at the lame names.

Really, is this the best name I can give, really?

Caillen's faceup

Just shots of his faceup cos I like how I did this faceup. :)

Doll FAQ

What are the dolls you have in your photos?

They're Asian Ball-jointed Dolls, also called BJDs, or ABJDs. You can find out more about them by googling like I did, or joining Den of Angels (DoA).

How much do they cost?

There are different sizes, and prices differ for between ranges, but my dolls are all SD sized (~60cm), and range from 400USD to 600USD. They can, and DO go up to 1000USD or more, especially for limited editions though I've not spent that much on a single doll so far.

Where did you buy them?

You can buy them from a wide range of companies that you can find from DoA's wiki, but my dolls are specifically from the following:

Gabriel, Dennis - eluts.com

Hew, Sion, Nathaniel, Caillen - migidoll.com

Ezekiel, Kristolf - leekeworld.com

Jack - dollmore.net
Tiyana- elfdollshop.com
Joe - nobilitydoll.com
Freddy, Elly - Volks
Cypher - dollfairyland.com

However, Gabriel's sculpt has been stopped, and Ezekiel and Kristolf's sculpts have been discontinued. Joe is a limited release of Esthy/Distant Memory Peroth by Nobilitydoll. It is still possible to get them off DoA's marketplace though. Also, Volks sculpts are hard to get first hand if you don't live in countries with physical stores like Japan, Korea or USA. I got Elly from Volks Korea when I stayed there for a while, and got Freddy secondhand. Their sculpts are limited releases but Volks does rerelease them sometimes.

If I find the time to, I'll go make a list of the companies I know of, but there's really too many, and many of the companies are so small that I've never heard of them (which is quite fun to find out actually). Off the top of my head, here's some other companies I know (but never bought from):
Dream of Doll (DOD)
Doll in Mind (DIM)
Crobidoll
Iplehouse
Granado
Dollzone (DZ)
Little Monica
Unoa/Alchemic Labo (the first is their doll name but I didn't even know their company name at first lol)
Supiadoll
Limhwa
Volks

There's links to bjd sites on the sidebar of this blog, and most of them sell dolls, so do check them out. The list isn't exhastive though.

Where do you buy their clothes from?

Most of their clothes are from:

Tata's Paradise

Sunny World

4D

Sadol

Ajumapama

Tree Design

M3

Leeke
Endless (for my girl)

If you have any specific clothing you are interested in, feel free to post a link to the image and ask me. I keep an excel sheet of all their stuff so I know where most of their clothes came from, except the ones I bought 2nd hand, which may or may not be known. (Yeah, I know. I'm a geek. Who keeps excel spreadsheets of their doll stuff anyway?)

So how many dolls do you have and what sculpt are they?

In the order I got them:

1. Gabriel (CP Dreaming Lishe boy)

2. Dennis (Luts SDF Bliss)

3. Nathaniel (Migidoll Jina boy)

4. Hew (Migidoll Miho)

5. Sion (Migidoll Miho)

6. Ezekiel (Leeke Khal)

7. Kristolf (Leeke Mihael)

8. Jack (Zaoll Muse boy)
9. Tiyana (Elfdoll Vivien)
10. Joe (Esthy Peroth) (He was previously Caillen, then Benja, and now Joe)
11. Caillen (Migidoll Cynical Ryu modded)
12. Freddie (Volks Olivia head)
13. Cypher (LTF Pong Pong)
14. Elly (Volks Tae)

What eyes do they wear?/What wig?/What body are they on?/What mods do they have? Who did their faceup?

I have a more complete doll profile of each of my dolls here. Please do check it out before asking me :)

What camera do you use?

Nikon D7000. I usually use my 50mm 1.8G lens but I do take photos with my kit lens (18-105mm). Some older photos are taken with an Olymupus digital camera (check the camera information on dA to know more^^). DSLRs aren't necessary for doll photos, but I like taking photos, and I need it for school work anyway (I'm in architecture). If you're just starting, just bear in mind, good cameras aren't as important as good photography techniques.

Do you edit your photos?

Almost always! I would at least tweak with levels and contrast (see this tutorial I did) but I like to play with colours and filters on photoshop too (another tutorial I did here). I use Photoshop CS6 to edit my photos.

Any other questions? Feel free to ask below, and I might add them to the faq :)

Caillen looks so tan beside Zeke, even though they're both NS...o.O

Anyway, Caillen likes to annoy Zeke cos Zeke keeps to himself in class and Caillen thinks it's fun to disturb quiet people.

On a side note, Zeke's wig looks terrible on anyone else but him. Maybe it's cos of his huge forehead?

A more decent shot of Caillen with my normal camera :D

Caillen :D I couldn't resist taking a photo of him with Gabby, the 2 dreaming eyed dolls I have, and they're cousins, haha. Alfie who's Gabby's younger sis is supposed to be a Zaoll dreaming luv, so you can see where this dreaming eyes thing comes from. Lol.

Anyway, I've not glossed his faceup but it's otherwise done. I was trying the wig I used for my Peroth back when he was Caillen (he's now Benja), and it worked! I even tried a lighter blond wig for Caillen but this shaded turned out the best. But it was a bit plain, so I cut a bit off a spare wig I have to give him a lighter streak in his fringe. He's borrowing Hew's body and using the other eyes from Benja's odd pairs (which is why I only have 1 of each colour), but hey, he has his faceup and his wig now :D

My Cynical Ryu head arrived (I have box opening photos but they aren't terribly exciting so I didn't post them) and I got to mod his nose yesterday. He has a faceup now but I haven't glossed it so he's still waiting in my drawer. The comparison of before (left photos) and after (right) would be better if the angles are more similar but they were mostly working photos while I was modding so I was making do to check if the nose mod was smooth. I did mod his left lip corner upwards a bit, but it's so small that it's not obvious, haha. His nose is more or less the same shape in these photos but I did do other stuff to it. Anyway, my first mod went pretty well, I think. :D

P.S. The first comparison photos look like that cos of the angle, I didn't mod his cheeks or anything o.O